


The Black Swan

by Dangerously_Demonic



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Fairy Tale Retellings, Odin (Marvel)'s A+ Parenting, swan!Loki
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-18
Updated: 2020-04-18
Packaged: 2021-02-23 14:29:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23712979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dangerously_Demonic/pseuds/Dangerously_Demonic
Summary: After annoying Odin for the last time, Loki's changed into a swan, proceeds to terrorize the local inhabitants around his chosen pond, and absolutely doesn't adopt the resident half-human stable hand.
Relationships: Frigga | Freyja & Loki (Marvel), Loki & Original Male Character
Kudos: 16





	The Black Swan

**Author's Note:**

> Concept: fairy tale where the wicked step-parent (who is of course also some sort of warlock) transforms the princess into a swan, as one does, but rather than running off to mope around in a lake and be beautifully tragic, the princess decides to stick around the palace and cause problems on purpose.

Truthfully, Clayton really didn’t remember how he got to Asgard. He could really only remember being sick, a golden-haired woman, and then waking up…Except when he woke up, he was significantly less human than before. Learning how to walk again, this time with too long legs and a tail, had been a massive learning curve, as was the sudden telepathy. On the bright side, the healers were willing to work with him and a woman, Frigga, had taken him under her wing to teach him about his telepathy.

It threw him all for a loop, in all honesty. But Clayton being Clayton, felt awkward having everything handed to him. He’d been born as lower middle class on Earth, and suddenly, he’d become a ward of the Asgardian royal family. All his needs were met, anything he wanted, he could have, and life was _perfect_.

Clayton hated it.

He’d been raised to work for what he needed and honestly, the life of luxury didn’t appeal to him. So, he requested for something to do and he argued that it’d help him relearn some of the movement skills that still gave him issues. This ended up swaying Frigga who suggested that he work with her in the gardens. Clayton immediately disagreed and pointed out the stables. This was met with some polite discouragement. After all, Midgardians hardly used horses for war and it was unlikely he knew how to ride, let alone control one of the beasts.

Clayton didn’t hesitate to prove them wrong; the only issues being verbal cues, given that the horses had been trained with a completely different language. There had been a reason he requested the stables, given that he had experience with horses…Plus horses rarely backtalked. Verbally, anyway.

The work ended up being fairly menial, but it got him out of the palace and let him stretch his legs. Plus, made him feel like he was earning his keep. It also allowed him to explore the gardens around the stable, which eventually led him to a pond. In the pond was a single, black swan. This made him curious since, as far as he knew, swans tended to be in pairs. Who knew, though? Maybe Asgardian swans were different.

Given that he had nothing to do, he sat down near the edge of the water and quietly watched the swan slowly swim closer. Every now and then, he’d heard stable hands talk about some ‘Brat Bird’ that was always causing trouble for them. Either stealing tools they needed or just making a mess of things. So, naturally, they chased it off. This made him wonder if the swan was the bird in question, and if so, which came first: the bad behavior or the chasing.

Clayton blinked in surprise at the swan being in front of him. It seemed to be as curious about him as he was it. “Sorry, I don’t have anything to give you.”

Almost as if annoyed with this response, the bird gave him the stink eye before preening itself. He only laughed quietly. “Yeah, I feel like that sometimes, too. Weird that you’re all alone. Thought swans tended to be in pairs.”

The swan ignored him, lost interest, and swam away…Leaving him alone once more. A short while later, he returned to work and made a mental note to ask Frigga about the swan. Maybe she had an interest in ‘exotic’ wildlife and the bird was her pet.

When he asked her about the bird, she merely gave a tight, sad smile and stated that the bird wasn’t something she’d discuss. This struck him as odd since she’d been open about everything else. It said to him, that there was something else going on. Given that magic seemed to exist on Asgard, there was no telling what that ‘something else’ might be.

So, he thought things over for a few days and eventually returned to the pond. This time, he brought his lunch with him. Once more, the swan swam over and when it looked like it was about to steal his sandwich, he put a container of food in front of it. Really, it wasn’t anything special, just some chopped fruit.

The swan paused and tilted its head to look at the container of food, then looked at him, and back to the food before it started eating. After a bit of time, Clayton carefully reached over and tilted the container a bit to allow the bird to get the last bits of fruit. This action was met by a hiss. “Oh, stop it.”

He lightly rattled the container to knock loose a bit of grape that’d gotten stuck in the corner, then gave the swan an unimpressed look to match the glare he was receiving. Finally, it resumed eating and after it finished, wandered back off to the water.

This ended up being a bit of a normal thing. Clayton honestly liked being left alone since he was still struggling with the aspects of his change, mutation, or whatever the fuck it was. People tended to stare and it was all he could do to prevent himself from trying to hide away. The job helped, sure, but oddly enough, having the swan to talk to helped out. Even if it did hiss at him a lot.

Hilariously, it was the swan’s angry hissing that warned him that one of the stablehands had shown up; Clayton’s tail gave an annoyed wiggle. Honestly, he just wanted to be left alone during his breaks.

“Feeding the damnedable thing will just encourage it.”

“I’unno. Maybe if I feed it enough, it’ll like me. Funny thing. I haven’t been a dick to it, and I’m the only one who’s shit hasn’t been bothered.” He shrugged and tossed a bit of bread at the swan who snapped it up, then gave the stablehand a shit eating grin. “Or maybe, you’re just ugly as fuck and you offend it.”

This netted him a glare and the stablehand stomping off. Clayton only laughed and tossed the swan a bit more of his lunch. “Dunno what got his pants in a twist. I was just being honest, wasn’t I?”

The swan ignored him in favor of preening.

Sometimes, he was too busy to eat lunch at the pond, so, he bought a bowl for the bird and left it near the pond with some food. Sure, the swan probably had lots of food around the pond to eat, but it just seemed happier and perkier since he started feeding it. Of course, when it came to animals, he was also a sap. Which led him to building a small house, a dog house in all honesty, for the swan…Who he’d very cleverly named ‘Hisser’.

He made sure the house had a layer of straw at the bottom, then a hefty amount of shavings; it was going into winter, after all. Then, he started putting the food bowl next to the house to, hopefully, encourage Hisser to use the house. Even if the swan didn’t use it, he was sure some other animal would. Still, it gave him unending delight when he saw a nest in the house had been made and there were a few black feathers inside.

Every now and then, Hisser would waddle over to him and present a wing. The first time it happened, Clayton was beyond confused, until he saw the primary flight feathers had been clipped, rather poorly at that. It meant the new feathers coming in were causing issues. So, he clumsily, but carefully, worked to help Hisser, occasionally apologizing when he clearly hurt the bird. Still, despite the hisses he received, the swan always seemed happier when he finished. Clayton didn’t mind very much and despite what he tried to claim, knew he’d very much adopted the swan as his.

Winter came in like a beast, with claws and teeth that drove even the bravest Asgardian indoors. It left Clayton wondering how Hisser would manage and if the swan would be fine after the storm passed. Naturally, when the storm _did_ pass, he bundled himself up, made some warm breakfast grains, and headed out to the pond.

Much to his displeasure, he found children throwing snowballs at the swan, who was already limping away in an attempt to escape into the undergrowth. To say the least, the children didn’t appreciate it when they suddenly found themselves in a snow drift; Clayton had found that telekinesis could be handy for a number of things. They quickly skidaddled, leaving him to try and coax Hisser out.

“Come on. Lemme look at you. I brought warm food?” He ignored the raspy hissing and opened the container to show it to Hisser. While he knew the bird couldn’t understand him, he hoped that it still trusted him, but feared the children had undone everything he worked for. Finally, Hisser slinked out of the undergrowth, limping and dragging a wing.

Clayton tightly pressed his lips together in irritation. While he could understand the dislike that the locals had towards the bird, Hisser couldn’t fly to escape. It was honestly just cruel. So, while Hisser picked at the food, Clayton tried to carefully see how injured it was. He expected to get hissed at, bitten, flogged with the good wing, something. Clayton, however, _did not_ expect the swan to all but climb into his lap. “Uh?”

Hisser, quite insistently, pressed against him and looped its neck around his, as if to say that it wasn’t going anywhere. Finally, Clayton sighed and carefully picked up the bird to start the trek home. Softly, Hisser made unhappy noises in his ear, which just served to fuel his irritation.

When he reached the small house he called his own, he set Hisser down to unlock the door and then sighed when the swan limped right in, then settled down by the fireplace. “I’m not having you in here, you’ll shit all over the place.”

This earned him a very offended look, but he ignored it in favor of closing the door and shedding all the winter clothes. Once he finished, he sat down next to Hisser to carefully check it over. Overall, he couldn’t find anything wrong and supposed that the bird had just been bruised. Quite suddenly, Hisser climbed into his lap and promptly tucked its head under its uninjured wing. Clayton sighed. “I have things to do, you know.”

Hisser simply made a content churr.

Somehow, Clayton managed to end up with a swan as a roommate. Not the strangest thing ever. What _was_ strange, was how Hisser seemed…Housebroken. The fucking swan would only shit in the bathtub, which made it easy for him to clean up. This of course, led to many questions on Clayton’s part, based on what he knew about birds.

Of course, things changed abruptly when Frigga decided to arrive

“I’m here for the swan.”

Clayton couldn’t help but side eye her. “Look, I appreciate all the help you’ve given me, but why? The last time I asked you about Hisser, you brushed me off. I kinda just assumed you didn’t care about it so…No. My swan. I adopted it. I would say ‘I licked it therefore it’s mine’ but that’s gross so. I fed it, therefore it’s mine.”

Frigga simply gave him a bit of a quizzical look at his rambling. “You stole him.”

“Bullshit, I did! Some fucking punks were throwing snowballs at him! He was limping and dragging a wing. So, I brought him home because I thought he might have a broken wing.” Clayton scoffed and tried to calm his temper, then looked at Hisser who was peeking around the couch at them. “Hisser’s kinda refused to leave since then. So, no. You’re _not_ getting your swan back, and if you don’t like it, you can kiss my buggy ass.”

Rather than being insulted, offended, or anything like that, Frigga merely smiled slightly. “So, you’d say you love him?”

“No, absolutely not. I hate him.” Clayton’s voice was nothing short of sarcastic. Then, he made an exasperated noise and pointed at his bed in the corner where a fluffed-up nest of blankets had been made near the head of the head, in the corner. “That’s where Hisser sleeps. He only craps in the bathtub, so I kinda went ‘fuck it’.”

This time, Frigga laughed. “Well, Odin never did specify what type of love he meant.”

“Wait, what.” Clayton glanced between Hisser and Frigga. “What are you talking about?”

“’Hisser’ is better known as ‘Loki’, at least, before his fath—” She was interrupted by an angry honk. “Excuse me. _Adoptive_ father…Curse him for bad behavior. You know the sort. Cursed to be some animal till he finds love’s embrace. He should have been specific. Loopholes and what have you.”

“Wait, wait. You mean the Crown Prince ‘Loki’?”

Rather than getting a direct answer, Clayton ended up taking a step back when he suddenly had a black-haired man, wearing plain cloth clothes, tightly clutching a robe made of black feathers around himself.

“…What the actual shit.”


End file.
